A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [55]
At bath time he kept his eyes closed for six whole seconds while she rinsed the shampoo from his hair, and they had a discussion about how big a skyscraper was, and the fact that it could still fit into the world even if the skyscraper was ten times as big because the world was truly massive and it wasn’t just the earth, it was the moon and the sun and the planets and the whole of space.
They had filled pasta and pesto for tea and Jacob said, “Are we still going to Barcelona?”
And Katie said, “Of course,” and it was only later, after Jacob had gone to bed, that she began to wonder. Was it true, what she’d said to Ray? Would she refuse to marry someone who treated her like that?
She’d lose the house. Jacob would lose another father. They’d have to move into some shabby little flat. Beans on white bread. Cutting work every time Jacob was ill. Arguing with Aidan to hang on to a job she hated. No car. No holidays.
But if she went ahead? Would they bicker like her parents and drift apart? Would she end up having some halfhearted little affair with the first bloke who made an offer?
And it wasn’t so much the thought of living like that which depressed her. A few years of single-parenting in London and you could put up with pretty much anything. It was the compromise which hurt, the prospect of chucking away all the principles she once had. Still had. The thought of listening to Mum’s smug lecturettes about young women wanting it all, and no longer being able to answer back.
It was going to have to be a bloody big box of chocolates.
46
The hangover put George’s other problems out of his mind almost as effectively as the alcohol itself had done.
He had occasionally drunk to excess in his early twenties, but he could remember nothing quite like this. There seemed to be grains of genuine sand between his eyeballs and the surrounding socket. He took two ibuprofen, threw up and realized that he would have to wait for the pain to recede of its own accord.
He would have preferred not to shower, but he had wet himself while sleeping. He had also cut his head on the door frame and when he caught sight of his face in the mirror he looked not unlike the tramp he had seen on the station platform the day before.
He closed the curtains, turned the knob to hot, shut his eyes, removed his clothing, maneuvered himself into the jet of water, massaged some shampoo gingerly into his scalp then turned slowly like a kebab to rinse himself.
Only when he got out of the shower did he remember the sodden state of the towels. He fumbled his way blindly to the bedroom, extracted his own from the rucksack, dried himself gently then carefully inserted his body into a clean set of clothes.
A part of him wanted to sit on the edge of the bed for a couple of hours without moving. But he needed fresh air, and he needed to get away from this mess.
He put the wet towels into the bath and swilled his mouth with a pea of toothpaste and a little cold water.
He packed the rucksack, then discovered that bending over was beyond him and was forced to lie on the carpet to tie his laces.
He considered remaking the bed, but hiding the stains seemed worse than leaving them visible. He did, however, take a moist lump of toilet paper to the blood on the wall outside the bathroom.
He would never be able to come to this hotel again.
He put on his jacket, checked that he hadn’t lost his wallet, then sat for a few minutes gathering his strength before hoisting his rucksack onto his back. It seemed to contain actual bricks and halfway to the lift he had to lean against the wall of the corridor and wait for the blood to return to his head.
In the foyer he was hailed by the